Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Representation and Reality' and 'Virtues of the Mind'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / d. Emotional feeling
The feeling accompanying curiosity is neither pleasant nor painful [Zagzebski]
     Full Idea: Most feelings are experienced as pleasant or painful, but it is not evident that they all are; curiosity may be one that is not. [note: 'curiosity' may not be the name of a feeling, but a feeling typically accompanies it]
     From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1)
     A reaction: If a machine generates a sliding scale from pain to pleasure, is there a neutral feeling at the midpoint, or does all feeling briefly vanish there? Not sure.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam]
     Full Idea: The desire that grips Fodor, as it once gripped me, is the desire to make belief-desire psychology "scientific" by simply identifying it outright with computational psychology.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], p.7)
     A reaction: An "outright" identification looks very implausible. It seems that we should accept that belief-desire psychology is a very good guide to normal brain events, but a bad guide to unusual brain events. See Ideas 2987 and 7519.